Hope is the last thing one would expect to find among people waiting in line for free food on Christmas Day. But there it was, sprinkled across homeless encampments and pop-up pantries throughout downtown Washington.
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It was inside of Winfred García, 65, who is learning to walk again after liver disease almost killed him. It was in Sonya Roa, a 33-year-old woman who was saving for her own apartment after two years on the streets. And it was all around 64-year-old Michael Myles, who, after 47 years in prison, for the first time felt like celebrating Christmas.
“I woke up this morning,” Myles said, standing near McPherson Square in Northwest Washington. “So I know something good will happen.”
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There were real reasons for hope to be absent this Christmas in the District, especially among the city’s population of people without roofs over their heads. The region is in the throes of its worst coronavirus surge, with more than 1 in 100 Washingtonians testing positive in the week leading up to the holiday. Meanwhile, just last week, the D.C. Council rejected an emergency bill aimed at restricting Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s authority to remove homeless encampments. The bill would have paused encampment evictions through the end of the District’s coldest months.
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But on Saturday, it was 60 degrees and sunny, and volunteers set up containers of freshly cooked food in Columbia Heights, Anacostia and McPherson Square. Bren Herrera, a renowned chef, had organized the day of service for the sixth year in a row. The meals were supposed to bring comfort to people who needed it. This year, Herrera said she felt the hope, too.
“It wasn’t festive like this last year,” she said. “But now look at this.”
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“Feliz Navidad” blared from the speakers. A little boy skipped around the block. Mask-wearing volunteers chatted with food recipients as they shoveled smoked chicken, green beans, roasted potatoes, stuffing and meatballs onto plates.
Last year, Herrera said, the whole operation felt mechanical. Volunteers packaged food in to-go boxes to limit the risk of coronavirus exposure. They still handed out hundreds of meals, but the weather was biting, vaccinations were scarce and the future felt bleak.
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This year’s operation was far from perfect — two families canceled their volunteer shifts right before the event because they tested positive for the virus — but there was something new in the air.
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Roa, for one, came to Columbia Heights wearing a Santa hat and a glistening smile. This time last year, she was out of an apartment, out of a job as a pastry chef, and struggling to reenter the workforce while the pandemic continued to upend her industry. The tide has turned in her favor since then.
First, Roa found work knocking on doors for Bowser (D), encouraging people to get vaccinated. Through that program, she said, she met the mayor, who helped her find a job as a breakfast concierge at the Hyatt House Hotel in the Wharf development. She still sleeps in a shelter; she still worries about housing prices. But Roa said she is closer than ever to having enough in savings to afford her own place. And that right there is hope.
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“I have something to do instead of being idle,” she said. “I’m getting my independence back.”
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García sat a few feet away from her in Columbia Heights, enjoying potatoes and meatballs. The 65-year-old from Cuba spent six months in the hospital this year battling a liver disease that he said almost ended his life. Christmas, for him, has never been easy. He has no family in the United States and no job or home to speak of. He rarely feels farther from the bustling community in his home country, which he left at age 23 to find out what America looked like.
Still, he is feeling especially thankful this year — to be alive and fed and forgiven by the God he believes in. “Sometimes we make a mistake and God forgives us all,” he said. “And this year, He gave me another chance at life.”
García stood up with his walker, showing the friend beside him how he could gingerly place one foot in front of the other. The two of them planned to have Christmas dinner together, alongside the other people they had met spending their days in Columbia Heights.
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Two miles away at McPherson Square, where dozens of people experiencing homelessness spent Christmas Day, Myles ate turkey and considered the complicated taste of freedom.
He was proud of the strides he had made toward finding employment — securing identification, a Social Security number and a culinary degree from his time in prison. He was also hardened by the difficulties of life after release. The sleepless nights in McPherson Square when he feared for his safety, the broken community he had found when he tried to go home. His parents had died while he served time.
Myles was only 17 when he was put behind bars, which meant this year was the first time in his adult life that he was able to choose how to celebrate the Christmas. When it came time, he wasn’t quite sure what to do.
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“I have siblings, but I didn’t want to be a burden,” he said. So he spent the day at McPherson Square, pleasantly surprised by the warm weather and new faces around him. He wore a new beanie and sunglasses, tags still on, that he got from volunteers.
But what Myles really looked forward to on Christmas was evening Mass at a church nearby. His brother was supposed to pick him up. And even though Miles had cut off his phone number because he could no longer afford to pay the bill, he knew his brother would come.
How? Well, he hoped.
A man strung Christmas lights from his home to his neighbor’s to support her. The whole community followed.